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Researchers in early-childhood development are looking for ways to solve a big dilemma in education: How to teach children to control their impulses. Here are ideas for how parents can train their kids to contain themselves:
Pack your well-rested, well-fed student off to school with homework lessons in self-control. Guaranteed, notes home will decrease. Otherwise, teachers will continue to waste their day recycling comments such as: Stay in your seat. Stop talking. Hands to yourself. Focus.
Early results in a study of kindergartners suggest that experiences with family play a greater role in the development of self-control than school experiences. Also, self-control is linked with greater academic achievement, a study at the University of California at Davis suggests.
Follow Miss Manners: Have family meals together, and stick to guidelines such as nobody digs in until everybody is seated. Waiting for your dessert, one serving, is another way to teach self-control. If your kids can't remain at the table, they won't be able to manage lunch rules at school.
Walk together hand in hand: Insist that your little one hold your hand in parking lots and while crossing streets. The more your child learns to pay attention and control his whims, the safer he will be. Choose times where you insist that your child walk with you, but back that up with plenty of times for him to run free.
When playing games, insist your child wait his turn.
Try simple goals first, says the National Association of School Psychologists. For preschool children, an appropriate goal would be to not interrupt while you're on the phone or talking to another adult. Children can learn to resist interrupting others if the behavior is modeled for them and they get positive feedback, the psychologists say. But be realistic. Don't let your kids get to the point where they are starved for your attention while you chat for 25 minutes on your cell phone.
One key to self-control, the association of psychologists says, is to teach your child how to cope with the word "no" without falling apart. Preschoolers especially want what they want when they want it, and need some ways to cope with their aggravation. The child who learns to accept "no" will gain self-control.
